Investors yank $3.7 billion out of stocks

The retreat from U.S. stocks continued last week, with investors pulling $3.7 billion of domestic stock mutual funds.

The move out of the U.S. stock market continued through the final week of summer, as investors remained stuck in a rut and refrained from making any big moves ahead of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's big speech in Jackson Hole.

In fact, investors pulled another $3.7 billion from U.S. stock market mutual funds during the week ended Aug. 31, according to the Investment Company Institute, bringing the 2012 outflow total to more than $76 billion. By comparison, those funds lost in the neighborhood of $70 billion during the first eight months of 2011, and just $52 billion during the first eight months of 2010.

According to the preliminary data that is frequently revised, investors yanked more than $14 billion out of the stock market in August, the most since April.

While investors have been fleeing U.S. stock mutual funds, they've been plowing into bonds, which are considered safe haven investments. In fact, bond funds raked in $6.6 billion last week, according to ICI data, and attracted more than $29 billion throughout August.

Hibah Yousuf is a reporter at CNNMoney, where she covers stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies trading across the globe, as well as corporate earnings and other markets-related news. Prior to joining the site in 2009, she interned at Money Magazine.